Privately-gated communities, privately-gated residences, secure controlled doorways, restricted government access areas, garage-doors and lock boxes, and other restricted access or gated areas provide security against potential intruders but have the disadvantage of hindering emergency response personnel, such as police, fire and ambulance services, from quickly entering the gated area as required in emergency situations. This is due to the fact that security gates or other structures are designed to require an operator to carry keys or to know access entry codes, or to carry a transmitter which generates a personalized entry code, in order to open such secure structures. Consequently, the entering of such a gated or access-restricted area presents considerable problems for emergency personnel trying to move swiftly through, or respond to calls in, such a gated area, or when trying to open a restricted-access area. What is instead desired is a system in which the security structures are effective barriers to unauthorized personnel and yet emergency personnel are able to quickly and easily enter these areas. It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a remote controlled system enabling emergency response personnel, or certain auxiliary authorized personnel, to quickly and easily enter restricted-access areas such as privately-gated residences and communities and secure controlled doorways without having to carry keys, know access codes, or carry the owner's encoded transmitter for each locked gate or other security structure.
Another important design consideration is that the desired gate-opening system must be designed such that only licensed emergency personnel or auxiliary authorized personnel are able to operate the system. If this were not the case, and if other individuals were able to operate, tamper or break into this system, the very security purpose of the security structure itself would be compromised as this structure would be easily openable by unauthorized personnel. Accordingly, it is an object of the present system that it cannot be operated by anyone other than licensed emergency response and auxiliary authorized personnel.
At greater levels of security, it may also be desirable to restrict access to a particular locked structure to only certain pre-authorized auxiliary personnel within or even outside a particular emergency response agency. Stated differently, it may be desirable that all of the persons within a particular emergency response agency may not have the same authority to access a particular locked structure. It is, therefore, a further object that the present system be able to identify the particular individual who is attempting to activate the present unlocking system, and determine whether this individual is pre-authorized to activate the unlocking system, as a pre-condition to activating the unlocking system.
Although the present invention is primarily directed towards emergency response personnel agencies for security reasons which will be set forth herein, it is a further object that the present system be also be adaptable such that it can be activated by auxiliary personnel in agencies other than those which are considered to be strictly "emergency response". For example, public utilities including gas companies, telephone companies and even cleaning services may be selectively afforded authorization to operate the present system. As will be explained, however, the ability of the present system to selectively provide access to locked security structures or secure controlled doorways to such non-emergency response auxiliary personnel will be under the control of the system owner, such that high levels of security can be maintained at all times.
As a security back-up, it is a further object that the identity of the individual persons activating the unlocking system be recorded for future reference by the unlocking system itself. Preferably, a form of recorded "activity log" would be generated to provide a record of those individuals who activated the unlocking system, the emergency response agency to which they are affiliated, and the date and time at which the security structure was unlocked.
Having security structures including the gates of privately-gated communities, residences, secure controlled doorways or lock boxes for residences, industrial buildings or other security structures openable by some form of remote control device located in the emergency response or other vehicles itself would enable such structures to be opened easily and in a timely fashion without emergency response personnel even having to get out of their vehicles. It is accordingly an object of the present invention that an emergency response person or authorized auxiliary person be able to open security gates, doors and other locked enclosures without even having to leave their vehicle.
Existing remote control door opening devices, (such as garage door openers), are typically designed to be operated at a selected control frequency such that a door or gate is opened in response to the transmission of a coded signal over the particular frequency from a limited range, remote control transmitter. With such devices, different coded signals are used to open different doors or gates. By having the range of transmitters limited simply by their relatively low power and by having various garage door openers each set to different codes for their activation, the chance of any garage door opener inadvertently opening a neighbor's garage-door is remote. Fundamental problems exist with attempting to adapt this form of door opening system to solve the present problem, as set out below.
Being set at a specific pre-set coded signals, a separate garage door opener is required to open virtually every garage door. It is, accordingly, another object of the present invention that this problem be overcome by providing a universal emergency response gate-opening system designed to allow an emergency response person or authorized auxiliary person to open many different private gates without being required to have and operate a plurality of different coded gate-opening devices corresponding to each of the various locked gates.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system which would not be easily openable by various public-access radio frequency transmissions. It is still another object that the use of the universal emergency response gate opening system of the present invention will not inadvertently unlock other neighboring locked gates in the vicinity of the particular locked gate which is desired to be opened.
Moreover, it is another object of the present invention that emergency personnel should not be required to carry an additional or "extra" security-structure opening device in addition to all the other emergency equipment which they must now carry. Such an "extra" device would need to be issued to all emergency personnel, including police, fire, ambulance, etc. This raises the problem of certain emergency personnel inadvertently not being issued with such equipment. This "extra" device could inadvertently be lost and thus fall into the hands of an unauthorized person. In addition, it is an object of the present invention that the system not be limited to operate only in a particular geographic area or only with a few pre-selected locked structures. Moreover, the universal security-structure unlocking system should not be difficult or time consuming to operate or to learn to operate.
Furthermore, it is an object that the present security-structure opening system not require excessive retrofitting to be installed nor require technical equipment modification or standardization to be operable by a variety of existing emergency response agencies. Thus, this system should be easily adapted for use by police, ambulance and fire department personnel without the need for any inter-agency co-ordination. As such, it is yet another object that this system be adapted to augment the usefulness of existing devices already used and carried by emergency response personnel as this would eliminate the need for extensive equipment modification or retrofitting.
Various systems already exist for remotely opening gates through the use of various radio controlled devices. Examples may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,616,444 to Taylor and U.S. Pat. No. 4,667,440 to Grace, Sr. Unfortunately, these systems are very limited in addressing all the security concerns of the present invention as these patented devices do not disclose any security features in regard to the actual radio controlled operation of their gate opening systems. Rather, the systems of the Taylor and Grace patents simply disclose that some existing form of radio transmitters, presumably coded signals, can be used to activate the gate opening system. These systems, therefore, are not adaptable to solve the present problems of emergency response personnel desiring to quickly open privately-gated residences and communities.